Best Resume Tips of 2016

3 Résumé Tactics That Will Get You the Interview

As long as the job market continues to be competitive and hiring managers are inundated with thousands of applications that mostly look alike, the savvy job hunter needs to figure out ways to stand out from the crowd as a beautifully unique snowflake — but also a professional and highly qualified snowflake. Technological advances have changed the job hunt in a variety of ways, so keep ahead of the curve by optimizing your résumé for today's hiring practices.

Visual Storytelling

You needn't look further than social media to know that images are more engaging than simple text. Facebook posts with images are shared significantly more than posts that consist only of words because visual information is processed more quickly than text — a fact you can use to your advantage on your résumé. Consider using infographics, a visual tactic often utilized in marketing materials, which your résumé essentially is. When done well, infographics can communicate lots of information at once and demonstrate your creativity. It may not work for every industry but if your field of interest lends itself to this kind of informational display, check out these tips for crafting a killer infographic résumé.

Brevity

In this age of information, we take in and absorb a staggering amount of data at tremendous speeds every day. Attention spans have shortened and brevity is the name of the game. Take a page from Twitter's book and try to pare down the descriptions of your past roles to brief, concise, and easily digested sentences featuring key words from the job listing (as long as they genuinely describe your experience).

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Numbers Rule

For careers in which you can quantify your accomplishments in terms of dollars or online traffic — do it! Hiring managers will be more impressed with cold, hard facts than vague assertions that you "boosted sales" or "reached traffic goals." Get specific and — dare we say? — braggadocious. Nobody can sell yourself better than you (except maybe your mom), and numbers (especially monetary facts) provide solid proof of your abilities. The goal is to be impressive at a glance, and numbers can convey how awesome you are quickly and efficiently.